In 2006, a total of £2.016bn was spent online by advertisers targeting the UK’s 31 million internet users. Last year’s growth has increased the internet’s share of all advertising revenues to 11.4%, up from 7.8% in 2005.

Google made £872m in the UK last year, a significant increase from 2005’s figure of £483m. In 2005, a total of £1.36bn was spent, with 35% going to Google.

The online advertising giant is even more dominant when it comes to the paid search market.

Paid search accounted for 57.8% of the UK’s online ad spend last year, a total of £1.2bn. Of this paid search spending, 75% went into Google’s pockets, with its rivals sharing the remaining £295m.

While the amount spent on paid search increased by 52% from 2005, revenue earned by Google’s rivals has remained almost constant year on year.

For comparison, in 2005 the UK paid search market was worth £768.4m, with Google taking 63% of the market.

In addition, online ad spend has now overtaken the amount spent on national newspaper advertising, which last year grew by 0.2% to £1.9bn, and a market share of 10.9%.

Online advertising is now just over half the size of the TV ad market, which fell by 4.7% to £3.9bn.

The UK now leads the world for share of online advertising spend, as the global average is currently 5.8%.